Gainesville Goodwill plans to rebuild

Its been just over a week since the Gainesville Goodwill caught fire, and although the building was a total loss, representatives for Goodwill say they plan to come back better than ever.

A five-alarm fire destroyed the Gainesville goodwill building at East U.S. Highway 82 and all of the contents inside. But the organization says Goodwill is important to the community and they have plans to build a new store.

"We are just waiting for our insurance company to give us the go-ahead so we can get the contractor started on the rebuild," said Katrina Coffman, director of workforce development and marketing for North Texas Goodwill.

One goodwill employee says the fire was a blow to the agency but there is a silver lining to the accident.

"Its great that they're building a new store. it's a pretty old building...its about 40 years old, so it had to have a lot of problem. So not that it was a good thing that it burned down but it is fortunate to get a new store and we'll be able to employ a couple of more people as well...on top of the other people we already had here," said Robert Breiner, an employee at Goodwill.

The Goodwill organization has been in the community since 1958 and Coffman says all of the displaced Gainesville employeees are temporarily working at other facilities, with most choosing to work at the two locations and processing facility in Sherman. Coffman said this is a tough time for everyone.

"Anytime something like that happens in a community it just affects everyone. There are many, many people that shop at goodwill so that has affected their ability to get such great deals that we have at goodwill," said Coffman.

Although the location in Gainesville is a total loss. they say they have a trailer on site to accept donations that the facility.

"We're open six days a week. We're open Monday through Saturday. Only day we're closed is Sunday and we're accepting donations from 9 in the morning to 6 in the afternoon," said Breiner.

Goodwill says a new store could take several months to open but are asking the community to donate their gently used items to any good will location to help stock the new store when its ready.

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